Where the Road Bends

by David Rawlings

Bree threw off the blanket and glared at him. “You like having things in the open, do you? If you want Andy to be honest, how about you start? You hide a huge thing from us about being married—so much for your honesty.”

  Eliza nearly snapped her neck as she spun to face Lincoln. “You what?”

  Oh no. Lincoln’s pulse quickened. “Since when do I have to report to everyone about what’s going on in my life?”

  Eliza wasn’t backing down. “You’re married?”

  This was not how he wanted Eliza to find out. “It was a mistake.”

  “And you didn’t think your old friends would be interested in knowing that?” Eliza’s head shake grew in intensity. “And you talk to me about rekindling things?”

  Bree shuffled around the fire to join Eliza as the breeze gusted into a steady wind. “What’s in that letter that so terrifies you if we know about it?”

  The battle inside Lincoln raged as the rejection from his youth and the rejection of the present melded to form an unstoppable force. The mercury inside him rose as the wind rushed through the campsite, extinguishing the remaining flame clinging to life on unburned wood. “You want to know what’s in the letter? My very-soon-to-be ex-wife wants a divorce, and she’s coming after the fortune I amassed from my sheer talent and fifteen years of working hard. And she’s coming after me for more than her fair share. She wants it all.”

  Eliza thrust out her hands. “Well, tell her she can’t have it. Why would she do something like that?”

  Lincoln folded his arms as the story he wanted to stay closed was pried open inch-by-inch. “She kept going on about all these other women—”

  Eliza scoffed. “I can see why. Your social media over the last year or so has been nothing but you and other women.”

  Lincoln raised a deliberate, quivering finger and pointed it at her. “Don’t you lecture me on relationships. None of that happened before she left. Look, it’s no big deal.”

  It was as if Bree’s voice was strengthened by being next to Eliza. “No big deal? You got married! Why wouldn’t you tell us?”

  The wind now howled through the campsite, embers sailing as Eddie rushed to check the swags. “We weren’t expecting any kind of weather tonight.”

  Lincoln wasn’t expecting anything like this either. He struggled to hear Eliza’s voice over the wind. “Wait a minute! You are still married?”

  Lincoln shielded his eyes from the sand that swirled throughout the crater. “She kicked me to the curb.”

  “But you were still married and that would have crushed her. It would probably feel like you’d already moved on and left her behind.”

  The fuse that had been slow burning for fifteen years flared to life with Eliza’s comment. “And there it is. You did exactly the same thing to me at graduation—moved on with your life without even looking back or asking me if this was a direction we could go in together. Who packs their bags for LA and moves on without looking back?”

  “Lincoln, I was trying to—”

  “What? Do what was best for you? And then you built this perfect life that revolves around you.”

  The wind flung Bree’s blanket high into the air, where it disappeared into the darkness. “How different is that from your life? You never were like this, Lincoln, but now you’re all about yourself.”

  He wasn’t finished with Eliza. “You said this trip was going to be significant. What does that even mean?”

  “It means something is missing in my life, and I’m taking the time to find out what it is.”

  Eddie returned to the campfire. “We should think about finding Andy—”

  “Shush!” Bree raised a hand. “Can you hear that?”

  Beyond the gusts of wind, there was a different sound. A heaviness. A rushing. Like a distant freight train.

  Eddie threw a panicked look at Sloaney. “That sounds like it’s going to hit us.”

  Bree stood. “It sounds like a train.”

  Eddie shook his head. “No trains around here.”

  The roar grew louder, deeper, and in an instant the campsite was lashed with a gale-force wind, knocking them off their feet.

  Bree yelled, “It’s a hurricane. We have to find Andy.”

  Sloaney cupped his hands around his mouth. “We don’t get hurricanes out here. Get to the four-wheel drive. Hopefully Andy’s got enough sense to find it.”

  Eddie yelled into the howling wind, “I’ll go and find him.” A faint flashlight beam rushed away from the camp as the dust circled the crater, the campfire seemingly in the eye of the storm.

  Eliza stood, hands on her hips. “That was fifteen years ago and I’ve moved on.”

  Sloaney grabbed Lincoln’s arm. “We have to get to the vehicle.”

  Lincoln shook him off as fifteen years of unresolved grief demanded their moment. He cupped his hands, his voice hoarse from the dust. “And yet here you are, claiming you’re lost in the world and something is missing. I reckon the missing piece of your puzzle is me.”

  “Were you hoping to invite me to the other side of the world and just pick up where we left off? Do you really think I’m that same woman who had just graduated from college?”

  Lincoln had to make his point. He couldn’t lose this exchange. “Isn’t that what you wish you were anyway? Back when you were happy?”

  A rock the size of Lincoln’s fist flew past his nose, and Sloaney groaned as he doubled over. “There’s no time. Stay low and get into the swags.”

  Above the crater and the screaming wind, a car door slammed. Lincoln dived into his swag, the canvas crumpling in the wind. Dust hit the swag like a sandblaster, and with fumbling fingers he zipped it up. The stinging stopped but the roaring continued. Lincoln lay in the deafening noise, his mind racing, his pulse thudding in his ears. When this storm had passed, a long list of people would get a piece of his mind.

  And at the front of that line was Eliza.

  Fourteen

  Andy tried to squint away the pain behind his eyes as he rubbed his temples. Last night was a blur—the attack from the others, scrambling to find the four-wheel drive for shelter, walking against an impossible wind and its scalding, sandblasting dust. Stumbling across the swags.

  The wind whipped at a rope scratching at his swag as the confines of his tiny sleeping quarters warmed with the early morning sun—the tucked-away solitude of his own space, the others zipped up on the outside. He reached for his cell phone. Seven a.m., and the solitude extended to his place in the world. No coverage.

  Relief. Andy strained to hear if anyone else was up. The expected muttering and whispered gossip, continuing their intervention but this time focused on another vice. His secret was now out but so was his escape plan. He was sure it would be the first topic of conversation over breakfast.

  Something sailed on the breeze, a faint smell that was both familiar and yet hard to pinpoint. It wasn’t the burning eucalyptus from last night. That smell was etched into his memory—smoke, menthol, and something elusive. No, this smell was fresh, like the eucalyptus at the water hole. Eddie must have brought in some branches. Maybe Eliza was getting her wish to do a . . . What did she call it? Journey of discovery?

  Andy shook his head with a sigh. It sounded like one of those motivational seminars back home, but the corporate arena had been replaced by the middle of nowhere and the shaman had traded slicked-back hair and a pin-striped suit for the exotic mystique of an ancient culture.

  A throaty chuckle burst from above his swag, graduating into a harsh cackling laugh. It wasn’t human. Andy clicked open the zip to see a bird perched on a gum tree’s limb above him, laughing at his situation.

  Wait? A gum tree?

  Andy ripped back the zip, his heart pounding as red dust trickled in and landed on his face. He stood, brushing the dust from his eyes, as a sense of vertigo launched itself up his spine. He took one step from the swag and his eyes snapped open as he started to lean into a void.

  Over a cliff.

  Andy tottered on
the balls of his feet, his arms windmilling to regain balance. He staggered away from a sharp edge where the rock stopped abruptly and the yawning distance began. He dropped to his knees, the terra-cotta rubble cracking under his weight. The whipping wind beat his ears in a constant thrumming as a flock of black birds swooped past his ears and dived over the edge. Low, squat mounds of thick, tinder-dry grass dotted the rock platform that sat between him and . . . oblivion.

  Andy crawled to the rock’s edge, cut away by years of weather and story, leading to a dead drop of five hundred feet. A winding ribbon of crystal-blue water shepherded by thick gum trees and large rocks seemed cut in two as if cleft by a giant sword. The sense of vertigo again mugged him, spinning his vision. His breath shallowed in an overwhelming sense of panic.

  This wasn’t the cliff he’d been lowered from earlier—that was a mere bump in the landscape compared to this height. And Sloaney had told him that cliff next to the water hole was the only one near the campsite.

  Andy crawled back from the edge, throwing frantic glances left and right, scrambling to latch on to anything that made sense. His swag, into which he had commando-crawled to seek refuge from the whirling sandstorm, was the only thing that was recognizable. It sat on a small plateau of rock, his only company a tall gum tree that stretched over the river below, a couple of berry-laden bushes, and a pile of boulders reaching twenty feet into the air.

  Another throaty laugh burst from the gum tree above him.

  The campsite was gone.

  * * *

  Andy’s hoodie flew out of his swag, followed by his pillow, then his backpack. He had to find his phone. The wind tousled his hair and blew around the giant gum tree whose spindly limbs jutted at crazy angles over the cliff’s edge, as if pointing to one of the many ways back. Or forward. Or anywhere.

  The cliff’s edge.

  How did he get here? This had to be a prank. He’d slept so heavily that the others had bundled him into the four-wheel drive and left him in the middle of nowhere. No tire tracks, no footprints, or anything that would show which way the others had gone. This was punishment for forcing an intervention where one wasn’t welcome. Why couldn’t they understand that if he disappeared, then his problems would disappear with him?

  Andy’s fingers found the hard rectangle of his phone under his sleeping bag. It gave him two pieces of news he didn’t want and couldn’t face. His phone was almost dead, and it had no service. What had been a relief five minutes ago was now a problem. A big problem.

  Andy scratched at his greasy hair as his lips curled with contempt. They wanted him to call out for help, and there was no way he was going to give them the pleasure. He breathed hard to regain control.

  Eliza had been bugging Eddie to do a journey, and she was forcing him to deal with his issues her way, trying too hard to fix a problem she had no business meddling with. Lincoln would be in on it as well. But how did they get him away from the campsite? It had to be the bush food. Spiked. They had been insistent that he try the goanna and the damper. He shouldn’t have caved and had that one bite.

  Andy’s frazzled nerves settled, but he wasn’t going to play their game. They wanted him to cry out for help, but he would do this himself. So, what did Eddie say about these journeys of discovery? They started with a step into the desert and then a discovery of who you really were.

  Andy brushed off the clothes now strewn with red Australian dirt and shuffled carefully to the cliff’s edge. The thin river below wound its way on the path of least resistance to its destination. Beyond it, the ground swelled to rolling hills studded with rocky outcrops and patterns traced in the landscape like a giant had trailed a comb across them.

  Instructions. Maybe they’d been left in his swag. Ten feet away the low-slung bushes rattled and shook. If they were trying to hide, they were doing a horrible job. The bush parted and a flickering tongue emerged, followed by a pointed leather nose and narrow, beady eyes. The lizard’s sturdy body was covered with a taut hide and a long tail, sweeping aside handfuls of rubble and puffing dust into the air. Knee high to Andy, it was a good stone’s throw from his swag, but sadly he couldn’t throw a stone that far. His first challenge. They sent this prehistoric lizard to scare him. It was partially working.

  Andy forced the nerves from his voice. “Hi, buddy.”

  The goanna cocked its head, its flicking tongue tasting the direction in which to charge.

  Andy moved only his eyes. If it did charge, there was only one place to go.

  The goanna lumbered toward him. Andy let out an involuntary scream and backed up to the gum tree, reaching for the lowest limb. The bark peeled away, and he staggered back with fists full of the flaking rough skin of the gum. The goanna was closing in.

  Andy again grabbed for the limb, the smooth skin of this ancient tree now slipping under his fingers. He found some purchase and pulled himself off the ground. His feet dangled as the lizard slowed. It stood beneath him, eyeing him with suspicion, its serpent tongue flicking.

  Andy’s heart pounded in his chest and his ears. A tremor rippled through him, his limbs buzzing. He’d failed the first challenge, but he still hadn’t called for help. I will deal with this myself and not give you the satisfaction. He could do this—all he had to do was chase away the goanna. He surveyed the area. A fallen limb rested against the trunk. That would do.

  With an annoyed headshake, his attacker lumbered away with its strange, swaying gait. Halfway to the bushes it turned and headed straight for Andy’s backpack, nosed it open, and rummaged inside.

  “Hey!” Andy’s voice strained in the rapidly drying heat. “Hey!” His arm waving went unrewarded, but the path was now clear to the fallen limb. Andy landed with a thud, turning his ankle on the loose rocks. The goanna eyed him, a sliver of candy wrapper trailing from its mouth.

  He lunged for the branch and, with a primal scream drawn from the depths of his very survival, ran at the prehistoric beast, waving his newly found weapon with gusto. The reptile gave a startled hiss and rushed into the only place it could find to hide. Andy’s swag.

  Andy skidded to a halt. Any instructions of what to do next now sat underneath a giant lizard, along with his hat, sunblock, glasses, and everything else he’d need. He reached for his backpack. At least he still had his water bottle, small as it was.

  He fixed his eyes firmly on his adversary, the swag now still. A flickering in the corner of his eye grabbed his attention. Away from the cliff, a distant deep-red vein throbbed in the heat haze. That could be the dirt track they’d used to drop him off, and it wasn’t too far away.

  And there was a dust cloud heading toward him. They were coming back, and if he made good time, he could probably reach it. He would turn the tables and catch them unawares. And, holding the element of surprise, he would unload. On them all.

  With one eye on his now-still swag, he hoisted the backpack onto his shoulder and jogged away from the cliff, grinning as he headed for the dust cloud.

  Fifteen

  Eliza’s hot breath assaulted her senses into action. The claustrophobia from the green wall an inch from her face clawed at her neck as her mind slowly caught up with her body. Her shallow breaths lengthened as she centered herself, until the memory of last night crashed into her self-control. She was responsible for the intervention that had blown up in all their faces. At least Andy had found his way back. The slamming car door had told her as much.

  The flashes of last night continued to fire. Andy, hooked not by the specter of drugs but gambling. And Lincoln, a lovesick old boyfriend stuck in the past, obsessed with a woman she used to be, and using her rejection as an excuse for ruining his life. There was no way she would be the rebound after a divorce. Still, she wouldn’t let it spoil her time away. She had Bree and would leave Lincoln to deal with his issues.

  Bree.

  The betrayal from her old friend bit deep. She’d lied for years about an audition she’d never gone to. Eliza’s mind raced ahead and she reined it in. Now
wasn’t the time to evaluate everything they’d shared, inspecting it for clues.

  She gritted her teeth as her resolve hardened. This trip would still be significant, even if she had to experience it all by herself. She shuffled the memories and filed them away, but one card wouldn’t fit. Part of her life was missing, and the missing part of the puzzle could be someone. But it definitely wasn’t Lincoln.

  She reached for her phone: 7:00 a.m. Hopefully the storm hadn’t wrecked their campsite and whatever Eddie had in store for them today. The dust had blasted her swag for hours until she had given in to sleep.

  Eliza listened intently for movement outside, to determine which conversation she would need to lead first. Silence. Being the first up was good. It would allow her to set the tone for the morning. Eliza wrenched open the zipper. The sky above her was baby blue, shining in unblemished perfection with not a hint of the previous night’s maelstrom. She fully unzipped the swag, and as she got to her feet, something about the terrain jolted through her like an electric charge.

  Her swag lay next to a graded road of dirt. A straight line of powdered red, the road fashion-runway straight to the horizon in both directions. Behind her, away from the road, nothing but empty plains. Across the road spinifex and scrubs dotted a landscape bereft of any signs of humanity.

  The campsite was gone, and she was alone.

  “Guys?” Eliza flicked through her options as she spun. “Eddie? Sloaney?”

  Her analytical mind kicked into gear with the silence, turning over her situation until it found the most obvious solution. After telling her for two days that they wouldn’t do a walkabout, Eddie had granted her wish, and this had to be the start of her journey of discovery.

  The sense of dread that lapped at the edges of her self-control receded, replaced with the fierce determination that had carried her through life on her own, and that everyone in LA fashion knew was a trademark in itself.

  She’d asked for a challenge, and she had one.

  Her solitude took on a different dimension. She’d been left alone—that was good. She was with the only person she had trusted since college. The others didn’t seem that keen on self-reflection and improvement anyway.